Richard Levinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3994891 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Levinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Levinson |
| SIGNATURE | LEVINSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Emory University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Changing times
The First Five Years of ‘Social Theory and Health’
Widening the Debate
Dead on Arrival
Theorizing Research and Researching Theory
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention partnerships with external behavioral and social scientists
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must have strong external partnerships with behavioral and social scientists to refine and carry out its research and programmatic mission. This article examines funding, employment, and other mechanisms used to develop and foster such partnerships. The authors describe in detail funding mechanisms (especially the often-used cooperative agreement and contracting mechanisms) and identify specifi…
Physical activity of public housing residents in Birmingham, Alabama
OBJECTIVES. Because few data are available concerning physical activity among minority and low-income persons, we characterized physical activity patterns among public housing residents. METHODS. Two separate cross-sectional surveys were conducted 1 year apart of randomly selected residents of eight rental communities administered by the housing authority of Birmingham, Ala. Indigenous interviewers completed 687 interviews in survey 1 and 599 in …
The schoolchild as health educator
This study describes health risk‐factor information transfer from sixth‐grade classrooms to the home. A randomized control trial of 1,204 children in 21 elementary schools revealed clusters of families where transfer of hypertension information was high and low. Thirty‐three mothers of both groups participated in qualitative interviews to determine where, how, and why the information transfer did or did not take place. After constant comparison d…
Hazards in Hospital Care
Statutory change and 'street-level' implementation of psychiatric commitment
To Do No Harm
Observations on the Evolution of Health Policy and Structure
Social Location, Significant Others and Body Image Among Adolescents
Relatively little is known about factors that influence the extent to which self-perceptions of attractiveness diverge from the evaluations of other observers. Examined in this study are socialfactors that affect the self-evaluations of body weight provided by more than 6500 adolescents. Data are obtained from Cycle III of the National Health Examination Survey. Our findings suggest that adolescents tend to denigrate rather than enhance their bod…
Mental Health and Criminal Justice
Harold M Visotsky Foreword Linda A Teplin Introduction Part One Legal Structure and Social Definition Barbara Weiner Interfaces Between the Mental Health and Criminal Justice System The Legal Perspective Norval Morris The Brother Boy A Fragment of a Manuscript Part Two The Dynamics of Intersystem Processing The Permeability of the System Linda A Teplin The Criminalization of the Mentally Ill Speculation in Search of Data Leo A Schuerman and Solom…
Gender homophily in preferences for physicians
Subjective decision making in medical school admissions
The Court of Last Resort
The Court of Last Resort looks at decision making in a mental-health court and at the dilemmas of treating mental illness while protecting patients' legal rights. Carol Warren spent seven years studying hearings in a large California court where people who had been involuntarily committed to institutions for psychiatric treatment could petition for their release. In this book she confronts questions of whether mental illness is real or only a lab…
Attitudes and the attribution of mental disorder
Among the problems of understanding mental pathology through a labeling perspective is the need to understand more about the attributional process itself. It is postulated that characteristics of observers, in particular their attitudes, influence the attribution of mental disorder to individuals manifesting deviant behavior. Questionnaire items were factor analyzed to produce several dimensions of attitudes and types of deviance. Tests of seven …
Teaching Labelling Theory
Teaching Sex Roles
Belief in appropriate sex role behavior is so embedded in culture that it becomes an unconscious ideology. Understanding the gender/sex-role differences, how they emerge, and their implications for social organization is a key component in contemporary courses in Sociology of the Family. Four techniques have been useful in exposing students to content and direction of sex-role socialization, its impact on shaping aspirations, and how discriminati…
Cross-Cultural Study of Health Care Systems
As part of a summer study abroad program at Emory University, a course in Comparative Health Care Systems was developed by the Department of Sociology in collaboration with the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. Students received 10 quarter-hour credits for a 6-week summer program. Most students have been undergraduates with interests in sociology or the health professions. Program costs include tuition, round-trip airfare, room and board (with Lon…
Retardation and the burden of stigma
An exploratory study of parents with mentally retarded children, plus previous research by others, suggests three hypotheses on problems of stigma that were systematically tested in mailed questionnaires returned by 319 mothers of seriously retarded children. Response to a series of statements were factor analyzed to form a scale of "stigma
The Soap Opera Game
offamily and marital interaction. Spouse roles were assigned to undergraduate students when then confronted a series of crises or episodes which reflected ideas discussed in the assigned readings. Students coped with the nine episodes, kept a record of decisions and reactions and produced a paper applying sociological theory and researchfindings to their own simulated marital experience. Assessment of the game's merit was based upon ability of th…
The cultural diffussion of punk rock in the United States
A sample survey of the audience awaiting admission to the first U.S. performance of the British punk rock group, The Sex Pistols, was conducted in Atlanta, Georgia. A self‐administrable questionnaire was employed, designed to generate comparisions between the audience sample and the NORC subsample of similar age range Southeasterners. The audience sample was revealed to be significantly: higher in socioeconomic status; more politically liberal; l…
Experiential Education Abroad
For the past five summers, Emory University's sociology department has been sponsoring a comparative health care systems program based in London, England. As an attempt to integrate experience in another society with classroom activities, this program might serve as a model for other teachers interested in the development of similar programs. The course objective, simply put, is to have students approach health care through a sociological perspec…
Sex Discrimination and Employment Practices
Males and females made job inquiries in response to 256 different classified advertisements. Clearcut discrimination was found in over one-third of the telephoned inquiries. Discrimination occurred in a greater proportion of male than female inquiries about sex-inappropriate jobs. Explanation was grounded in the degree of deviance attributed to male and female sex-inappropriate callers, the nature of “male” and “female” occupations, and employer'…
From Olive Oyl to Sweet Polly Purebread
Dangerousness, Stress, and Mental Health Evaluations
Many jurisdictions require psychiatrists to assess patient in the process of involuntary hospitalization. Considerable research indicates that psychiatric prediction of dangerous behavior is rather inaccurate, the principal error being one of overprediction. Inaccuracy may result, in part, from the psychiatrist's role in the health care system. The Mental Health Associate (MHA) role, not sharing some of these structural disadvantages, is hypothes…
Social Location, Significant Others and Body Image Among Adolescents
Relatively little is known about factors that influence the extent to which self-perceptions of attractiveness diverge from the evaluations of other observers. Examined in this study are socialfactors that affect the self-evaluations of body weight provided by more than 6500 adolescents. Data are obtained from Cycle III of the National Health Examination Survey. Our findings suggest that adolescents tend to denigrate rather than enhance their bod…
The Attribution of 'Dangerousness' in Mental Health Evaluations
Nmany jurisdictions, the involuntary civil commitment of individuals to mental hospitals is allowed if it can be demonstrated that the person is dangerous to self or At present, fourteen states have civil commitment statutes explicitly referring to the likelihood of danger to self or others. If criteria for issuance of hospitalization orders for involuntary hospitalization via medical certification and emergency detention are included, forty-four…
The toy salesperson
Physical activity of public housing residents in Birmingham, Alabama
OBJECTIVES. Because few data are available concerning physical activity among minority and low-income persons, we characterized physical activity patterns among public housing residents. METHODS. Two separate cross-sectional surveys were conducted 1 year apart of randomly selected residents of eight rental communities administered by the housing authority of Birmingham, Ala. Indigenous interviewers completed 687 interviews in survey 1 and 599 in …
Statutory change and 'street-level' implementation of psychiatric commitment
Retardation and the burden of stigma
An exploratory study of parents with mentally retarded children, plus previous research by others, suggests three hypotheses on problems of stigma that were systematically tested in mailed questionnaires returned by 319 mothers of seriously retarded children. Response to a series of statements were factor analyzed to form a scale of "stigma
Gender homophily in preferences for physicians
Cross-Cultural Study of Health Care Systems
As part of a summer study abroad program at Emory University, a course in Comparative Health Care Systems was developed by the Department of Sociology in collaboration with the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. Students received 10 quarter-hour credits for a 6-week summer program. Most students have been undergraduates with interests in sociology or the health professions. Program costs include tuition, round-trip airfare, room and board (with Lon…
An Encounter with Sex Discrimination
An experience was designed to provide undergraduate students enrolled in a Sociology of the Family course an encounter with sex discrimination. During the course, reasons for the differential occupational and educational achievement of men and women were discussed in terms of sex role socialization, constraints of normatively prescribed sex roles and discrimination in employment. In the past, students had been skeptical about the continued presen…
Baiting the Dissident Hook
This paper suggests that previous estimates of religious belief are inadequate not because they were biased but rather because they were biased in the wrong direction. Given the natural pressures toward traditionalism in this most religious of all societies, more accurate research may require a strategically dissident bias as a countervailing influence. After showing that the simple question Do you believe in God? predicts very little of one's sp…
The Chronically Ill Child and his Family
The Attribution of 'Dangerousness' in Mental Health Evaluations
Nmany jurisdictions, the involuntary civil commitment of individuals to mental hospitals is allowed if it can be demonstrated that the person is dangerous to self or At present, fourteen states have civil commitment statutes explicitly referring to the likelihood of danger to self or others. If criteria for issuance of hospitalization orders for involuntary hospitalization via medical certification and emergency detention are included, forty-four…
Teaching Labeling Theory
Several classroom techniques have been used in medical sociology courses to demonstrate the attribution of mental illness as a labelling of deviance, offering insights into labelling theory process. (1) Poetry ofa Schizophrenic: On the first day of class students were asked to demonstrate their expertise in detecting mental pathology before taking a course on that topic. Students were given a sheet of paper with three pieces of poetry and told to…
From Olive Oyl to Sweet Polly Purebread
Sex Discrimination and Employment Practices
Males and females made job inquiries in response to 256 different classified advertisements. Clearcut discrimination was found in over one-third of the telephoned inquiries. Discrimination occurred in a greater proportion of male than female inquiries about sex-inappropriate jobs. Explanation was grounded in the degree of deviance attributed to male and female sex-inappropriate callers, the nature of “male” and “female” occupations, and employer'…
An Encounter with Sex Discrimination
An experience was designed to provide undergraduate students enrolled in a Sociology of the Family course an encounter with sex discrimination. During the course, reasons for the differential occupational and educational achievement of men and women were discussed in terms of sex role socialization, constraints of normatively prescribed sex roles and discrimination in employment. In the past, students had been skeptical about the continued presen…
The toy salesperson
The cultural diffussion of punk rock in the United States
A sample survey of the audience awaiting admission to the first U.S. performance of the British punk rock group, The Sex Pistols, was conducted in Atlanta, Georgia. A self‐administrable questionnaire was employed, designed to generate comparisions between the audience sample and the NORC subsample of similar age range Southeasterners. The audience sample was revealed to be significantly: higher in socioeconomic status; more politically liberal; l…
Experiential Education Abroad
For the past five summers, Emory University's sociology department has been sponsoring a comparative health care systems program based in London, England. As an attempt to integrate experience in another society with classroom activities, this program might serve as a model for other teachers interested in the development of similar programs. The course objective, simply put, is to have students approach health care through a sociological perspec…
Dangerousness, Stress, and Mental Health Evaluations
Many jurisdictions require psychiatrists to assess patient in the process of involuntary hospitalization. Considerable research indicates that psychiatric prediction of dangerous behavior is rather inaccurate, the principal error being one of overprediction. Inaccuracy may result, in part, from the psychiatrist's role in the health care system. The Mental Health Associate (MHA) role, not sharing some of these structural disadvantages, is hypothes…
The Soap Opera Game
offamily and marital interaction. Spouse roles were assigned to undergraduate students when then confronted a series of crises or episodes which reflected ideas discussed in the assigned readings. Students coped with the nine episodes, kept a record of decisions and reactions and produced a paper applying sociological theory and researchfindings to their own simulated marital experience. Assessment of the game's merit was based upon ability of th…
Retardation and the burden of stigma
An exploratory study of parents with mentally retarded children, plus previous research by others, suggests three hypotheses on problems of stigma that were systematically tested in mailed questionnaires returned by 319 mothers of seriously retarded children. Response to a series of statements were factor analyzed to form a scale of "stigma
Teaching Labelling Theory
Teaching Sex Roles
Belief in appropriate sex role behavior is so embedded in culture that it becomes an unconscious ideology. Understanding the gender/sex-role differences, how they emerge, and their implications for social organization is a key component in contemporary courses in Sociology of the Family. Four techniques have been useful in exposing students to content and direction of sex-role socialization, its impact on shaping aspirations, and how discriminati…
Cross-Cultural Study of Health Care Systems
As part of a summer study abroad program at Emory University, a course in Comparative Health Care Systems was developed by the Department of Sociology in collaboration with the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. Students received 10 quarter-hour credits for a 6-week summer program. Most students have been undergraduates with interests in sociology or the health professions. Program costs include tuition, round-trip airfare, room and board (with Lon…
The Court of Last Resort
The Court of Last Resort looks at decision making in a mental-health court and at the dilemmas of treating mental illness while protecting patients' legal rights. Carol Warren spent seven years studying hearings in a large California court where people who had been involuntarily committed to institutions for psychiatric treatment could petition for their release. In this book she confronts questions of whether mental illness is real or only a lab…
Attitudes and the attribution of mental disorder
Among the problems of understanding mental pathology through a labeling perspective is the need to understand more about the attributional process itself. It is postulated that characteristics of observers, in particular their attitudes, influence the attribution of mental disorder to individuals manifesting deviant behavior. Questionnaire items were factor analyzed to produce several dimensions of attitudes and types of deviance. Tests of seven …
Gender homophily in preferences for physicians
Subjective decision making in medical school admissions
Social Location, Significant Others and Body Image Among Adolescents
Relatively little is known about factors that influence the extent to which self-perceptions of attractiveness diverge from the evaluations of other observers. Examined in this study are socialfactors that affect the self-evaluations of body weight provided by more than 6500 adolescents. Data are obtained from Cycle III of the National Health Examination Survey. Our findings suggest that adolescents tend to denigrate rather than enhance their bod…
Mental Health and Criminal Justice
Harold M Visotsky Foreword Linda A Teplin Introduction Part One Legal Structure and Social Definition Barbara Weiner Interfaces Between the Mental Health and Criminal Justice System The Legal Perspective Norval Morris The Brother Boy A Fragment of a Manuscript Part Two The Dynamics of Intersystem Processing The Permeability of the System Linda A Teplin The Criminalization of the Mentally Ill Speculation in Search of Data Leo A Schuerman and Solom…
To Do No Harm
Observations on the Evolution of Health Policy and Structure
Statutory change and 'street-level' implementation of psychiatric commitment
Psychology (23 works) · Political science (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Law (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works)